Mask of Swords Read Free Page A

for my cattle. Great days are upon us. The ancient bonds have been dissolved, and the valgasts require strength for the conquests to come.” He pointed, the flames around his right hand brightening. “You, however, shall not be here to see it.”
    Mazael cast aside his shield and ran at the wizard. The creature let out a sneering, rasping laugh and gestured, a bolt of flames bursting from its claws. Mazael twisted at the last moment, and the blast slammed into his chest with terrific force, the flames washing over him. He bellowed in pain and fury, but his armor absorbed the worst of it.
    The scales of the great dragon he had slain at Arylkrad had endured far stronger fires. 
    The wizard just had time to flinch in surprise, and then Talon plunged into his chest. Mazael ripped the blade free, and the wizard tumbled down the pile of rubble, greenish-black slime leaking from the wound in his chest. 
    Mazael turned and ran back into the fray. 
     
    ###
     
    A few hours later, the last of the valgasts had been slain or driven off, and Mazael stood with Toric and Sir Hagen before the ruined church.
    The loss of the wizard had demoralized the valgasts, and the creatures had fled into the darkness to the east. Mazael had commanded Toric and Hagen not to pursue, and neither the headman nor the knight argued. Many of their men had taken wounds, and all were exhausted from the fighting. Men moved from house to house, checking for the wounded and for any valgasts that might have lingered to cause mayhem later. 
    “You’ve encountered these creatures before?” said Mazael.
    “Aye, hrould,” said Toric. “A long time ago. A lifetime ago, in truth.”
    “Tell me what you know about them,” said Mazael. 
    “We called them the valgasts,” said Toric, rubbing his face. “I don’t know what they call themselves. They lived in the caverns of the underworld, and rarely came to the surface. When the Tervingi nation still dwelled upon the banks of the Iron River in the middle lands, some of the holds near the Endless Forest sometimes had trouble with valgast raids. They came in the dark of the night and to steal women and children and cattle and vanish with them into their caverns.”
    “The Endless Forest of the east?” said Mazael. “The Tervingi nation almost migrated that way, did it not? During the great moot?”
    “Aye,” said Toric. He shrugged. “I suggested it, for there were many Malrags to the south, and the journey to the west seemed too perilous. The moot did not approve of the idea, for the Endless Forest is infested with the soliphages, spider-devils, and we would lose many men pushing through their webs. Then Ragnachar spoke before the moot, persuaded us to come here…and you know the rest, hrould.”
    “Indeed,” said Mazael. “But we wander afield from the matter at hand. What else can you tell me about these valgasts?” 
    “Little enough, I fear,” said Toric. “So bold a raid as this is unusual. They are cowardly creatures, and prefer to attack from the darkness and the shadows. The time is wrong, too.” 
    “The time?” said Mazael. “Do they not prefer to attack at night?”
    “The time of the year,” said Toric. “In the middle lands, the valgasts only launched raids upon the days of midsummer and midwinter. Only those days, and no others.” 
    “It’s barely spring,” said Mazael.
    Toric shrugged. “I can offer no explanation. Perhaps these valgasts are of a different nation than the ones living in the underworld below the middle lands, and therefore follow different customs, just as we Tervingi follow different customs from the folk of the Grim Marches or the Jutai.” 
    “Logical enough,” said Mazael, though the answer did not satisfy him. The valgast he had killed in the hall had spoken of his father, which meant that the valgast had known he was Demonsouled. The wizard in the ruined church had said the old world was dead, that new conquests were coming. Did that mean an